I Love You, Sugar
by Rosebud5
Summary: Before Annie Cresta was the poor, mad girl… Before Finnick Odair was thrown into the Quarter Quell… Before a beautiful wedding with a sea foam cake and before a Survivor became a memory…There was a shell, a sugar cube, and a kiss. Annie/Finnick one-shot, pre-70th Hunger Games.


Yes okay so hello there… I know I haven't been on here in FOEVER and I really should be updating my chapter books, but here's the thing. School has kidnapped me and refuses to let me go until Christmas break (starting December 13th.) BUT. I just have a lot of Finnick and Annie feels and I have recently become more obsessed than usual with _Hunger Games_ and I figured it was time for an attempt at a fanfic about it, and also for a quick break from studying for finals. So I'll update my Enjolras stories soon, but until then enjoy this little Annick one shot.

Disclaimer: I am not Susanne Collins. Nuff said.

~Rosey

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**I Love You, Sugar**

"Finnick Odair you come back here!" Annie Cresta laughed as she darted after the copper-haired boy across the beach in the warm morning sun. "I have to be at work in thirty minutes and I need that rope!"

"You'll have to catch me first!" the Victor from four Hunger Games ago turned around teasingly towards her, waving the small coil of blue-tinted rope above his head.

"If I can catch a slippery fish the size of my hand I promise I can catch you!" she chuckled warmly before charging at him head-on and knocking them both backwards into the sand. She grinned triumphantly, taking the rope from Finnick's hands and looping it behind his neck to pull his face towards hers, kissing him deeply.

"Mmm," he smiled in contentment, laying his head backwards on the sand and looking up at her with adoring eyes. "Bet you don't treat the fish that well, do you, sugar?"

She giggled and sat up as Finnick shifted so his head was laying in her lap. She kissed his nose lovingly, stroking his hair with a gentle hand as she spoke. "When do you leave for the Capitol again?"

At this, Finnick's wide smile dropped, and his eyes became downcast as he watched Annie pick up a shell and start to carve at it absently above him with a knife. Bits of shell flaked down across his nose and into his hair as he answered her question. "Wednesday. One of those Victor's Dinners or something."

"And… Will there be girls there?"

"Annie." Finnick sat up, his eyes serious and trained directly on hers as he put his hand over her free one. "Please. You know I can't help what happens with the girls at the Capitol. You know that if I don't play along, they'll kill you, or Mags, or my father, or even your family. And I will not sacrifice any of you to them. I won't."

"Fin, I wasn't implying you should," she spoke earnestly and gingerly as she put a hand on the side of his face. "I just… I worry about you. You spread yourself too thin and… And you act like you love it but it's tearing you apart, Fin, I know it is."

Finnick stared at her wordlessly for a long moment before burying his face back in her lap again as she continued to carve at the shell. "Annie, please don't."

"Don't what?"

"Be so good to me. I don't deserve it. You know I don't."

She smiled simply, shrugging and pulling apart bits of the rope now, laying the shell aside. "We all pretend for the Capitol. I pretend that I love putting my name in for the Reaping to keep my family safe. Your father pretends he is glad you were in the Games. You pretend you're the 'Darling of the Capitol' to keep us all safe. It's all a game. The only real things that actually happen are in the arena. The Games are the least make-believe of Panem."

Finnick looked up at her with eyes so full of love it was painful, leaning upwards on his elbows to press a kiss to her forehead. "You're… Utterly insane, you know that, sugar?"

"Hmm, maybe," she spoke absently, knotting a loop of the thin rope around the carved shell, making a necklace and draping it over her beloved's head so it rested about his neck, the shell over his heart. "But you are too, you know."

He smiled fondly at the hand-made necklace, fiddling with the shell for a long moment before leaning up for another kiss. "I'm perfectly aware of it."

After a bit of a comfortable pause, Finnick sat up straight again and reached inside his bag, pulling out a little box of sugar cubes and holding one out to Annie. "Want one?"

"Of course," she grinned and nodded, popping the little cube in her mouth and sucking contentedly. "I don't know why you carry those around with you all the time, but I'm glad you do."

"I never told you why?" he looked perplexed for a moment as he helped himself to one of the sweets, running a hand through his coppery locks.

"No."

"It's what helped me after the Games."

"What do you mean?" Annie looked confused and a little worried as she watched Finnick pop another sugar cube into his mouth.

Finnick was quiet for a moment, doodling designs in the sand with his fingers before speaking. "I used to have pretty bad nightmares after the Games. You remember that, I'm sure… But for a long time my father never really knew how to help. Then one night Mags was over to talk to him about the Victory Tour and I woke up screaming… And she gave me a sugar cube and told me a story. I don't remember the story, but I remember how the sweetness of the sugar cube helped calm me down. And ever after that, any time I'm nervous or angry or upset or just feel the need for one… I have a sugar cube. It's stupid, I know. But it helps. Like tying rope into knots like we did when we were kids, remember? The night before the Reapings how we'd get together and just tie knots in ropes?"

"And now we just kiss a lot," she chuckled warmly, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I never knew the sugar cubes were to help with fear. I wish I had known that a long time ago."

"Well, I don't know if they help everyone else," he laughed warmly, his pearly white smile and attractive dimples making Annie's heart flutter. "But they help me, anyway."

"Well, I have my own kind of sugar that helps me calm down, anyway," she grinned mischievously.

"Oh? And what's that?"

"You," she whispered against his lips, kissing him needfully a heartbeat later.

"You're so incredibly cheesy," he chuckled breathlessly as she pulled away.

"And you're so incredibly in love with me that you don't care," she smiled against his cheek, trailing a hand through his hair.

"Ah, Miss Cresta," he grinned charmingly as he moved closer towards her. "You have found me out."

"You know what, Fin?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you too."

"I'm glad, sugar. I'm so, so glad."

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Eeeeek it's so cheesy and gooey and… Sugary. ha.

BUT today's been rough and I needed some adorable Annick fluffiness before bed so I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Please review? Since it's my first HG fic, it would mean so much!

~Rosey


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